[6] In addition to being released several times by Motown artists, the song has been recorded by a range of musicians including Creedence Clearwater Revival,[2] who made an eleven-minute interpretation for their 1970 album, Cosmo's Factory.

[8] By 1966, Barrett Strong, the singer on Motown Records' breakthrough hit, "Money (That's What I Want)", had the basics of a song he had started to write in Chicago, where the idea had come to him while walking down Michigan Avenue that people were always saying "I heard it through the grapevine".

[12][14][15][16] The Miracles' version was not released as a single due to Berry Gordy's veto during Motown's weekly quality control meetings.

Whitfield wanted Gaye to perform the song in a higher key than his normal range,[12] a move that had worked on David Ruffin during the recording of the Temptations' hit, "Ain't Too Proud to Beg".

[2] After hearing Aretha Franklin's version of "Respect", Whitfield rearranged "Grapevine" to include some of the funk elements of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.

[20] In 1969, Whitfield produced a version for the Temptations "psychedelic soul" album, Cloud Nine, in which he "brought compelling percussion to the fore, and relegated the piano well into the wings".

[22] Since both the Miracles' and Marvin Gaye's renditions of the song were rejected by Gordy as a single, Gladys Knight & the Pips' version became the first to be released, on September 28, 1967, on Motown's Soul label, with "It's Time to Go Now" on the B-side.

It reached number two on the Billboard Pop Singles chart the same month,[23] with the Monkees' "Daydream Believer" holding top spot.

Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" eventually outsold the Pips', and until The Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" 20 months later, was the biggest hit single of all time on the Motown label.

[28] In 1985, one year following Gaye's death, the song was re-released in the UK reaching number eight thanks to a Levi's commercial (starring Nick Kamen).

[38] British punk band the Slits recorded the song in a post-punk style as a bonus track on their 1979 album Cut.

[41][42][43][44] Queen Latifah used the original version as a rhythmic basis for her 1998 single "Paper", produced by Pras Michel for her album Order in the Court.

[45] "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" has been used twice in television commercials – each time using session musicians recreating the style of the Marvin Gaye version.

For the 1985 Levi's 501 commercial "Launderette", featuring male model Nick Kamen, agency BBH and director Roger Lyons, owing to budgetary constraints, brought in Karl Jenkins and Mike Ratledge to recreate the sound of the Marvin Gaye original with Tony Jackson, a Barbadian background singer for Paul Young, handling vocals and P. P. Arnold on backing vocals.

[29][46][47][48][49] The commercial's success prompted Tamla-Motown to re-release Gaye's single with the Levi's 501 logo on the sleeve — "an example of integrated marketing almost before the term was invented".

[29] A year later, in 1986, Buddy Miles was the singer for the clay animation group The California Raisins which sang it as part of a TV advertising campaign.

[89] Gaye's song is extensively sampled in the track, which was premiered during Tiësto's set at Ultra Music Festival 2018 in Miami.

[91] Fabien Dori from French webmedia Guettapen criticized the "cruel lack of originality" of the track, stating that "the drop seems strangely like the one from 'Boom', and this is not the generic vocal which will enhance the whole".